THE FREEZING WORKS AT TIMARU.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 7075, 22 February 1893, Page 3

THE FREEZING WORKS AT TIMARU.

The following description of the freezing r works at Timatu is from the pen of the special c correspondent of the Melbourne Argus, who e • a engaged in writing articles on the “ Dead e beat trade of New Zealand ; its rise, progress, t ■ad present condition ” c ■ My quest is the freezing works of the South } ■auterbury Befrigerating Company, and c Bithout more preamble I will proceed thither i Blotod by Mr Oroll. the engineer of the i Bbpany, whom I found forthwith a courteous t Baleman, and later a most ardent lover of t work, I made my way to the works, which i placed upon a gently sloping hill some i H miles from the town, and close by the j I have in a previous paper dwelt i Mm the importar.ee of a suitable site for t H g of this character, and oue of the first derations in selection is such contour of BBnd us will admit of ibo various processes | earned forward by gravitation. That . that the yards, buildings, plant, and should bo so arranged and ordered e slope of a hill that the live sheep in at the top and emerges frozen at the bottom. This requirement met in the works under review, architect and engineer have utilised fullest extent the natural advantages 1 And now let us follow the | describing the means and appliances as we go. Being drafted, the yarded for the night, and at 8 a m the pens ad joining the slaughterUpon the killing 1 need net dwell, Ba y that for this work the men are for every 50 sheep, and an expert kill and dress this number in six Of the dressing of the meat there nothing said but praise. Not one carcases, turned out by the tbouowould have graced the best sh»p in The work to my not unpractised g simply faultless, and it was with j pride that the head butcher, Mr { |, dwelt upon the value of such prepuor tho London market. Once a butcher city, Mr Gunnell bos hid wide of its retail meat trade, and fur with some apt illustrations of tbs s which enable the city flesh or to palm y Zealand mutton as the beat Hootch or I found him sceptical as to the 0 £ indelible marking as a preventive in the disposal of tho meat, and his reasons did nob appear to mo con* HB, j will present them when we reach of the English, or, as it is always here, the home market. The sheep, ■P*"dressed, becomes a “ carcase,” and as is duly ticketed with the shipper’s oonrsignmont number and tho name and brand of ihe Refrigerating Company, By this time the carcase is suspended upon a rolier-hook on an overhead railway which leads into the cooling*place (a large room with concrete floor and louvred sides), where it remains for twenty-four hours, in order that the animal heat may slowly subside and tho meat become properly “ set " before the freezing process is entered upon; Being “ set,” each carcase is (, awiftly and exactly weighed, without handling, ■ ' by a’special machine ; thoucsit is carried with i j hook attached by an endless band to the , 1 freezing rooms, descending by tho momentum 1 of its own weight 7ft in this downward course. An advantage of the gravitation j system as here worked should be noted at this point. In the systems worked upon one ' level all the iron pulleys or runners which » traverse the overhead railway, and from which ) tho carcases are suspended, are taken into the freezing room with the carcase, and being there in use, are necessarily frozen. Then it when the freezing of tho meat is completed the pulleys are returned to the slaughterhouse, and allowed to thaw out—a wasteful process moaning loss of frost and consequently coal. But with an endless band (as at I Timaru), worked by the weight of sheep | hanging thereon, the pulleys of the r, ! slaughter-house are loft behind directly

j j the carcase is weighed, and started on the , ' down grade on the endless band, when, . arrived at tbe place of delivery, it is caught I up by the overhead rail of the freezing-house, t-e pullajs of which are always in a frozen state. It is tbe multiplication of devices such r.B these that largely makes the difference ’twixb efficient and bad work, success and failure. From the endless band then the carcases are, without atop or pause, transferred to the pulley# of tho overhead railway of the freezing-rooms, a simple lover motion regulating the supply at th® point of junction. Passing along an external passage way, manhole doors, carefully “ packed " as to their close-fitting bevelled edges, are visible in the walls of the freezing chambers, and through ( these the moat is swiftly passed by an ingenious and simple switch motion (designed by Mr Croll) on to th® overhead rail within the chamber. The meat is thus safely housed L r final preparation without human touch from the time it received its arti#tic finish from the skilled hands of the butchers who dressed it. The freezing-rooms are three in number, and, with work in full swing, one is filled each day. In forty-eight hours the meat is frozen solid as a chunk of hardwood, and if dropped upon the hard floor beneath, the contact would give out a sound a# though of wood rather than succulent mutton. Being now frozen, the carcases are bagged in clean white calico, and lowered down a shoot into storerooms direct'y below the freezing rooms, and are there retained at tho necessary lowtemperature until taken to the ship that is to transport them to the consumers who await them upon the other side of tho world. The storerooms can hold 25,000 carcases at one time, and ar» emptied by a broad oaf leas j baud—driven by eteara power of course - upon which the carcases are laid and carried forward right into tho insulated railway vans awaiting them at the covered siding beside, and at the lowest level of tho work* it is almost as though an old-time California pump was bringing a continuous stream of mutton from tho store and dbcharging it ia trucks. Having thus far disposed of our sheep, though he has yet to be followed on, and after bis long voyage, tho perils of which are as naught compared to the bufferings he will encounter after he gats ashore in the old country, lot us turn to the mechanism that is producing thi# wonderful transformation in the food supply of our rime. The engine department is conveniently divided (the plans are throughout admirable) into two sections —tbe first upon the lower level contains four large boilers (Haslam’s), two being 25ft long by 6ft 6in diameter, with a working power of 801 b to the square inch ; two each 30ft in-length, 7ft diameter, 1101 b working pressure. Those are all connected, so that with a reduction of pressure upon the larger boilers tho whole four can be worked together. The ongineo, refrigerators, electric plant, &0., are easily accessible from the boiler • house, and are at a higher level about 4ft,_ The plant consists of one Haslam dry air refrigerator, capable of delivering 120,000 cubic feet of air per hour at a temperature of 80 : degrees Fahr. below zero ; and a second Has-1 , lam of 47,000 cubic feet capacity, delivering air at tho same temperature as tho larger machine. A separate machine furnishes ne ■ oeesary power for moving of carcases as already described, besides driving the dynamo fur electric light, which is used throughout the whole establishment, there being besides a full system of switches and electric bells. , Two pulsometers and a 10 b.p. engine working a “ three throw ” pump supply the whole of the works with water, while a donkeypump provides for fire and washing purposes. ’ An unlimited supply of both hot and cold water is always available, 12,000 gallons per hour of cold water being used in the refrigerators for cooling air and afterwards condensing the steam from the larger engines. Thehot water for the shambles is supplied from tbe exhaust steam from the smaller engines. ' The Water supply, which ia ample and J good, is drawn from a well sixty feet in depth and coven feet in diameter, with six inch iron pipes driven through to three independent water-bearing strata, each of which can bo regulated to suit tbe demand. There is also a o .ncrete mervoir holding 410,000 gallons, in case of any interruption to the work of tbe msin pumping plant Westport coal, which comes from the West Coast of this country, I and is the beet steaming coal in this hemisphere, is used at these works, the consumption being eight and a half tons for tho maximum output of sheep, the engines having feed water beaters and filters of the engineer’s own designing- At the maximum output the staff numbers 60 to 65 hands all told The engineer in charge at these works is Mr W. Croll, and I this company seems to me fortunate in having the command of the services of an active i young engineer whose heart is in his work, and whose constant aim must be, from the < appearance of those works, to maintain his department in the highest state of efficiency at all hours and times.